


Codex:  Final Page

by starsoverhead



Category: Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Diary/Journal, Gen, Reflection, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 09:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19315378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsoverhead/pseuds/starsoverhead
Summary: No matter the reputation, even a legend can look back upon their life and find themselves lacking.





	Codex:  Final Page

I never saw as much of the world as I wanted.

As a child, alone but for the guidance of Al Mualim, I saw little use for the world outside Masyaf's walls but as a place to be sent. A place where my knowledge would be tested and my blades put to use. When I began to look at it for myself, through the eyes of a young man, I saw little that changed my mind. The Saracens were cruel. They saw their families as possessions, their wives as objects to be hoarded away and scolded with a heavy hand, their children as objects of either pride or shame, more hands to work instead of minds to be taught and souls to be nurtured.

I say that now with the weight of years. At the time, I saw only the coldness and cruelty and thought instead of Masyaf, where we were instructed in many ways. Our minds were as honed as our blades, as sharp as our reflexes. I did not see in either place the truth behind so much: I did not see the lack of love, as I lacked it myself.

The Crusaders were no better. Their poor smelt of sickness and filth, begged with aching voices, their skin dry from sun that their homeland saw in much smaller measure. They hadn't the knowledge to wear sleeves, hoods, scarves against the wind. They did not understand that to share food was to share good will.

The world outside Masyaf was lacking. And so I continued to think until I touched the Apple of Eden and it showed me how far the world stretched beyond anyone's knowledge. A great sphere hanging amongst stars and darkness, with one star so close, in the scale of greater things than I can know, that we may as well reach our hands up at the heat of noon and brush our fingers against its scalding surface. And the Templars threatened it all. All of those lands, all of those people. So long as there were things like the Apple within their reach, the word against them had to be spread.

I saw them defeated in Cyprus. I took my wife and one of our sons into Mongolia to try to stem the oncoming horde. And then, blinded by loss, I saw nothing but Alamut for twenty years. It was my remaining son that traveled. To Alexandria. To Constantinople. To England, his mother's land, and France. I had wanted to spread word throughout the world, to prepare those of like sentiment for the danger that approached wherever the Templar cross arrived - but I was made immobile with grief. I looked into the Apple. I saw the past and the future. I wrote volumes on what I had seen and what was within our reach. I have seen the shape of the world, but never again did I see beyond the shores of Akka.

With all of the years I carry, I may have ten regrets for each. I know every mistake I have made, every person I have wronged, every life I have taken for reasons that were far from deserving. I know the danger of good intentions. And even now, my death approaching with each day, I see the glowing outlines on the sphere that carries us all, and I know I have not accomplished what was mine to do. All I can offer now are these words and the wish for what our Order should be: a haven. A place of open-mindedness and compassion. A place of learning and protection. A way of living that offers aid to those who need, strength to those who falter, and freedom for all mankind. It is our burden that providing this to all who come to us should restrict each of us so tightly - that we pay from our souls so others can live their lives without such pain - but never has there been a cause so worthy.

I never saw as much of the world as I wanted, but perhaps my words will find their way where my feet could not, and perhaps they will bring hope to dark times, and lend resolve to those who stumble. My father named me for one of the brightest stars in the night sky, one by which many find their way. I write this now hoping that I have not dimmed the name's regard.

Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad  
Mentor of Masyaf


End file.
